Sermon: Everything Beautiful (Ron Vernon Memorial)

Everything Beautiful Saturday, July 19th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Ecclesiastes 3:1–11

Prayer

Father, we thank you for the life of your servant Ron Vernon. We thank you for giving him a long life, a life within the church, a life amongst friends, a life of seeking to follow Jesus, even unto death. We thank you for the promise of Revelation 14:13, which says, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” We thank you for giving Ron rest in Your peace. And now we ask that we who still labor in this world, may take heed to our own death, to the state of our own soul, and so we ask in the words of Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Grant us such wisdom now, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

For the 2.5 years that I was privileged to be Ron’s pastor, I had many opportunities to ask him, “Ron, are you ready to meet the Lord?” Sometimes I would ask him what books he was reading, or how his prayer life was going, but as his health started to wane, I increased the frequency of this question whenever I saw him, “Ron, are you ready to meet the Lord?”

Most of the time, he would answer with something like, “I’m not sure,” or I’m not quite ready yet,” or “I’m trying but I’m struggling to pray,” or “I’m not where I ought to be.” On one occasion, he expressed that he was reading some books by the puritans, and he observed that their relationship with God seemed a lot more intimate and familiar than what he was presently experiencing. And so Ron, like most authentic Christians, desired greater assurance that he was forgiven, that he belonged to Jesus, so that he could be ready to meet the Lord.

And so this morning as we remember Ron’s life and celebrate that he now has rest from his labors, and full assurance of God’s love for him, I want to pose this same question to you: Are you ready to meet the Lord?

• However ready or not you feel, the truth is that God wants you to be ready at all times to enter His glorious presence. And He has given you in His word many truths to help prepare you for judgment day, whenever the day may be. And so this morning I want to consider briefly just three of those truths, so that you might have greater assurance that you belong to Jesus. Or if you do not yet know Jesus, may receive Him from all that He wants to give you.

Truth #1 – You are going to die, and you don’t know when.

• We see here in Ecclesiastes 3:2, that there is a time to be born, and a time to die. And then in verse 11, we see that those times of birth and death and everything in between belongs to God.
• It says later in Ecclesiastes 8:8, No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, And no one has power in the day of death.
  • That is to say, no man is a self-sufficient being who gives life to himself. All of us are on divine life-support, and God is the one supplying oxygen to our soul, breath by breath, and we have not power over our soul to retain it or remove it. Even those who have attempted to end their life, sometimes find that God’s mercy does not permit them.
  • For God says in Deuteronomy 32:39, I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
  • And in 1 Samuel 2:6, Hannah prays, The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
• So just as you did not choose the moment or day of your birth, God chose it. So also, with the day of your death. No man knows with any absolute certainty, the day or the hour.
  • Jesus says of the rich fool in Luke 12:20-21, But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have stored up?’ “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
  • The Apostle James warns likewise of such presumption, as if life will go on as usual saying, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes aw